Christians believing in Evolution? Is it possible?

Of course it's possible. Evolution is merely the mechanism of God's creation.

Personally, I feel the inherent contradiction is in the opposite direction. Rejection of evolutionary theory reduces God to a deceiver, to a 'God of parts' filling in the gaps in our understanding of creation, rather than underpinning it in it's entirety, it also rejects one of the greatest of God's gifts, the faculty of pure reason.

People are, of course, welcome to their opinion, but I feel that the belief that God would create the universe in seven days, ten thousand years ago and then fix it in such a manner as to give all the impressions to the contrary is close to blasphemy

I believe the teachings of the gussied-up creationisn called "intelligent design," as an alternative to evolution, may come close to blasphemy.

Let's suppose God decided he'd give us a dry run of the Apocalypse. The horsemen would gallop across the sky, Gabriel would play his piece, and the almighty would look upon it all and say "Good job boys! Now folks, that was just a rehearsal. We'll be back for the real thing next month." Needless to say atheists would dwindle in numbers to 3 deaf-blind psychopaths. Within a day 99.9999999999% of humanity would have "seen the way."

But you do see a problem with this ... right? What happened to free will? The Old Man has forced us to believe!

No, I don't believe he'll do that. And the same thing goes for Him exposing Himself in some aspect of biology wherein His existence is made "irrefutable," "self-evident," etc. Faith doesn't come that cheap. You may indeed find God, but you will not find it by squelching the sense He gave you.

I am a Christian and a science buff. I believe in intelligent design which manifested itself in a form of evolution. Animal and plant species which have become extinct still served a purpose larger than themselves. Consider dinosaurs and ancient plants converting to usable fuel sources for modern humans as one example.

I'm also open to the idea that the first verses of Genesis are closer to Hebrew mythology than scientific fact, although one could argue that the seven Days of Creation correspond with the ages and periods assigned by evolutionists. There isn't necessarily a conflict with the timeline put forth by scientific evidence.

I have several problems with the current theory of evolution which are not necessarily religious in nature. What I haven't seen is evidence of creatures in transition. The assumption in Darwinian evolution is that a fish suddenly discovered dry land, but lacked the equipment to survive on it. Ostensibly, one of his offspring would also flop onto the shore and somehow develop rudimentary lungs. A few generations down the line, you get an air-breathing amphibian and then a land-based lizard and so on. My problem is: Where are all of the fish with partial lungs? It doesn't always follow that a creature faced with a challenging new environment would even want to develop the means to survive it. If we humans were suddenly forced underwater, we wouldn't necessarily want to grow gills. We'd figure a way to stay the way we are and leave the water to those creatures who are built to survive in it.

I also believe that God as a religious construct can exist separately from a creative force or the phenomenon of natural evolution. Belief in a Higher Being for spiritual comfort does not necessarily hinge on strict belief in the Genesis story.

Give this forum about 10 years, and most Christians will say... "Evolution, ya we've always believed in that."

The bottom line is it's real, and has been scientifically observed in tree snails.

This current argument on evolution reminds me about the Catholic Church back in the late 1500's that disagreed with Galileo Galilei and his writings on physics. Since they had put all their eggs in Aristotle's theories, they realized that this would make them look bad. So they tried to shut him down. Gradually it was embraced by the Catholic Church as the generations of Popes passed on.

Likewise give this question about 10-20 years, and most of these same people will be faced with evidence that they will either say is evil, or they will realize that God is working in a more describable way.

they should.Evolutionary theory is more detailed.The story of creation lacks so many details.It doesn't even talk about other planets and the universe.I think it is so stupid that christians believe that crap and then bash evolution, saying"The evidence is weak","It takes more faith to believe in evolution".That is so stupid.How could you think that evolution is weak and believe in the creation,which has no eveidence.Life on earth is not evidence.Anyone can make up a story about how life came about after the fact.Also,It takes less or no faith to believe in evolution.It has substancial eveidence.Christians have so much faith because of their parents putting it into their mind at such a young age.You're adults now christians.Stop believing in fairy tales.

Some cathalics beleive in evolution.They believe that Adam and eve were the first fully evolved humans.

Evolution doesn't have to mean big bang theory. All evolution is, is things changing over time because of their enviroment. Evolution is actually proven small scale. Bacteria changing and becoming resistant to an anti-biotic is an example of evolution. Rabbits changing white in the snow is an example of evolution. So god could have created all these animals, but when they change habitat they're gonna change too, so that's still evolution.

Also read jthillam's answer below. He is very right. Christianity on a whole can be VERY ignorant. Recognizing a new science doesn't mean you've given in on your beliefs. Science isn't all that important to Christian belief anyway. We've made it seem so important that it's become a courtroom to decide the validity of our entire belief system. We've stood up for so long in ignorance against critisism that we've made ourselves look like idiots. Which is true for a great number of people. Try studying the things you believe in, before you just cop-out and say you believe in them. Don't be lazy about it.

I feel that I'm pretty knowlegeable about scripture in the Bible and about the beliefs of some other spiritualities, such as Indians and Greek/Roman mythology.

Darwin was extremely observant. This is a quality of someone who truly desires to learn. I completely and whole heartedly believe in the creation of the world, and the method in which the bible descirbes that God created man. Where is my evidence? I'll get to that in a minute. First I would like to say that God never described the manner in which he created the world, animals, and plants. He just said "Let there be ______", and it was there. He didn't say whether or not he moved each ingredient into place, or simply created everything at one time.

The fact is, it's a mystery. Moses applied the word "day" in genesis to say that God took six days to creat the world, and one day to rest. The question is, what is a day that he is referring to here? A day to the Jews was their workday. They were able to work while there was light, and then they slept while it was dark. They tried to accomplish something for each of their "work days". Moses said,"There was evening and there was morning-the first day." I would say it was to give a frame of reference to the fact that it was a "day" for each item God accomplished. Since God rules the entire existance of everything, I doubt he observes the same 24 hour day according to the sun he created.

My point is, there could have been millions of years before the sixth day where he created man. Dinosaurs could have walked the earth during that time. Can we deny the existance of dinosaurs? No. And we have not found one shred of evidence to say that man didn't walk with dinosaurs. What we do have, however is an ever-growing stockpile of fossils that are dated and examined and seem to indicate evolution. 1 for Darwin, 0 for Creationists.

Science isn't always right, but for hundreds of years scientists have been discovering more and more evidence of evolution. The only thing that stops them from proving that we didn't evolve from monkeys (I'm sure monkeys wouldn't claim us as relatives either) is a huge gap in their evolutionary timeline called "the missing link".

Could it be that monkeys always evolved and were around ong before man? Could it be that we also have evolved slightly, but dating back to a certain point where creation of intelligent life began? Otherwise, why would monkeys not have all evolved into humans? I realize that many animals evolution has taken them on different turns, but none of them to intelliegent communication, or the ability to efficiently use tools, or the desire to clothe themselves, nor have they desired to cook and season their food.

I believe in evolution, but not of humans from monkeys. I believe that the creation of earth could have taken billions, even trillions of years. I only believe these things because evidence doesn't lie, and God never dictated things the way that Christians seem to believe them (speaking of evolution, of course). Don't say you believe in something when you refuse to examine the evidence. Jesus scolded people who refused to believe in something when it was right in front of their face, too simple too fit their "intelligent" views.

The problem is, we focus too much on arguing about something that is irrelevant. Until the scientists find what they believe to be their "missing link" we don't have to worry about them proving us wrong. For now, get out of this mindframe, and look around you at how beautiful everything is. Learn how to praise God for how incredible he is for all the things he's given us to wonder about. Who knows more than Him? Relax and realize that the important thing is how you affect other people's lives for Him, not about how much you've proven to the world that you can justify your belief. After all, we'll find out one day.

I did not read what you wrote, sorry.

Adam Eve is a story about evolution.

God guided them beautifully with the universe,

then they ate from the tree of knowlege of good and evil...

they evolved to thought consciousness, and fell out of favor

with the univers (God).

Jesus (the new consciousness) is evolving beyond thought to

a more perfect union with God (the universe).

We judge, we suffer.

I don't see how anyone that is a true Christian could believe in evolution.

to believe in evolution is to not believe in genesis. no matter how you slice it. theistic evolution is an oxymoron (let us make man in our image) you cant believe in both

They are rejecting Genesis.